The rise of electric vehicles, new digital manufacturing processes and supply chain woes has meant that keeping production lines rolling during today’s fast-changing manufacturing landscape is no easy feat. It has also highlighted a major roadblock: a growing skills gap. The days of trying to simply throw more people at the problem are behind us. Closing this skills gap requires a serious rethink to how workers are trained, upskilled and retained. Enter the connected worker approach. The lack of skills in manufacturing is a current and growing issue. In Canada, the sector has lost a bit of ground, currently accounting for just 8.8 per cent of the workforce, compared to 9.2 per cent in 2019. It’s where a connected worker approach to learning and development can play a role in onboarding and reskilling workers. It’s about putting frontline workers at the heart of operations and ensuring a continuous flow of improvement. Those manufacturers struggling to increase their skills pool must make sure they have the three essentials of workforce management on their radar: 1. Take advantage of digital tools. By using digital and analytical tools, organizations can understand the skills that new employees need, assess learning retention and evaluate the return on investment of their training efforts. 2. Keep an eye on future developments. A deep understanding of the future of your industry is crucial to ensure you are building the workforce of the future. By proactively addressing future skills needs, organizations can ensure they have the right skills in place to navigate disruptions and drive innovation. 3. Invest in upskilling initiatives. Upskilling investments are showing real ROI in the automotive industry. Upskill your new workforce to close the skills gap and drive new efficiencies and productivity. Take time to invest in existing workers Closing the skills gap is not all about new employees. Employers are now realizing that they need to invest in reskilling existing workers and focus on in-house training initiatives. But traditional training and reskilling regularly involves shadowing a senior operator, and formal classroom-based learning. The problems posed by each of these methods is that shadowing will take a senior operator away from their existing daily roles, and formal training through PowerPoint, for example, doesn’t promote a strong caliber of information retention on the shop floor. Training must unlock new employee competencies and skills in a more organic, efficient and effective way, rather than a traditional ‘training events’ approach to workforce development. While shadowing is hands-on, it’s inconsistent between each senior operator carrying out the training. Using a connected worker app to facilitate training means that each new hire can be consistently trained in role-specific skills when and where necessary at the time of need. Training in this way will empower workers and team leads to progress on a learning path as the need and opportunity arises, rather than waiting for the next training events. On the job and ‘always on’ The adoption of the 70:20:10 model for learning and development is a key, progressive move for manufacturers worldwide. It shows that: • 70 per cent of learning happens through on-the-job experience. • 20 per cent of learning happens socially through colleagues and friends. • 10 per cent of learning happens via formal training experiences. That’s 90 per cent that comes from experiential and social learning. So, if experiential and social learning aren’t a part of your training mix, you’re missing an opportunity to reduce the time and costs of training in your factory and to build skills versatility and coverage. When using a connected worker app, manufacturers can adopt an “always on” approach to learning so frontline worker trainees or existing skilled workers can self-serve with plenty of training content on their own, as and when they need it. For example, at a time of need, workers can scan a QR code for a refresher on how to perform a task, or during a pause in production they can access the training curriculum and get ahead on any further training. This approach can transform learning from being thrust upon workers, to a new generation of workers self-managing and taking initiative with their own training—while ensuring consistency across the organization. Formal learning only reaches 10 per cent Integrating complementary apps on tablets, or even VR headsets into frontline worker training and reskilling is already seeing success in continual improvement use cases. Connected worker apps offer a comprehensive solution to overcome labour challenges and empower employees to thrive in a changing industry landscape by fostering connectivity between the top floor and shop floor, personalizing learning and enabling continuous reskilling. Workers get job satisfaction and the company gets enhanced resilience and long-term growth. Adopting a connected worker approach will help manufacturers retain skills, diminish attrition rates, ensure regulatory compliance and boost productivity. Giving workers access to a tablet or VR headset, complete with the connected worker software app, will support and enable them to work effectively and safely, while training them on the job in new skills. This new system makes delivering training easier and less reliant on formal training events. Instead of waiting for scheduled sessions, employees have on-demand access to training content. Real-time notifications keep employees informed of updates to training materials and work instructions, ensuring that everyone’s skills remain up-to-date and aligned with evolving requirements. Additional benefits Going digital for training records can also help when it comes to audits and compliance requirements. Tracking and overseeing skills is time consuming and, in many factories, still being done today in spreadsheets or paperwork locked in filing cabinets. This manual process is bound to result in outdated records and the risk of auditors finding gaps in training completion. With an automated digital skills matrix, team leads and workers have visibility into, and accountability for, staying current on training curriculum. Plus, management has reliable real-time data to identify training gaps and take corrective action where needed. Regulatory standards require manufacturers to establish, maintain and demonstrate a culture of continual improvement, which is precisely what a connected worker platform, with real-time data collection and analysis, problem solving workflows and performance dashboards, is designed to do. The tech solution keeping workers connected Naturally, a shift in technology, processes and the products being manufactured means that traditional training methods will no longer suffice. How frontline workers consume information has even changed. Today’s manufacturing companies have some catching up to do, with the real business value being felt through a connected worker approach. Not only will they ease the process of onboarding new employees, but they will see employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention rates improve too.
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